Podcast Summaries

We have this month been talking about church during the month of September. A couple of weeks ago we were looking at how and why the church, like the church in general, is absolutely wonderful. And last week we talked about some of the characteristics that define us as a community, so this church, and how we feel God has shaped and formed us to be this specific expression of his church here and now. So if you missed either of them, feel free to catch up on our podcast found on, or what's that phrase? Anyway, search Gloucester Vineyard Church. And today we thought we would bring this all together and we would both come and we would, well I was going to say share the mic, but have two separate mics. Because we have a bit of family business, as I mentioned earlier. We want to talk about some exciting next steps for us as a community as we move into what we sense God is calling us to over the coming years. And so we thought we would start by going on a bit of a storytelling journey, if you will indulge us. We just want to take some time to unpack a bit more of the Gloucester Vineyard story so far. What we've been hearing from God for us as a community. And that's in order to put into context and make sense of us talking about what's coming next. Does that sound alright? Good. Tough if not. Good, I was going to say that's what we're doing, so whether you like it or not. Let's rewind a few years then. Go on. So about 10 years ago when we were younger, more energetic, and had more hair, Em and I were in the process of getting ready to come and plant this church. Now if you've not heard the term church planting before, it's basically where you go somewhere where there isn't a church already and you start one from scratch. We felt really sure as a couple and as a family that that's what God was asking us to do. But we had all sorts of important questions about that process like where? Quite an important question to answer. Where and how and when and all that kind of stuff. How on earth are we going to do this? And so we went to go and visit some very wise friends of ours who've planted a church before. And we asked them these questions and they gave us a sage piece of advice which was when you plant is more important than where you plant. They said when you go is more important than where you go. Hands up if you, like me, think that that is bonkers advice. Yeah, it's bonkers advice, right? That's totally bonkers. But they responded when I said that's bonkers advice. They said, well, how many times have you had a conversation with people that goes along the lines of, oh, we were always going to go and do that amazing thing for God, but the timing was never quite right. Never quite was the right timing, so we never did it. You know, we feel like God asked us to do something, but, you know, it was the wrong time with the kids or something was going on with my career or I was washing my hair. And so we just never did that amazing thing that God asked us to do. So they said to us, when you go is more important than where you go. So get the when set in stone and the where will all follow. So we thought, what have we got to lose? Let's give this a try. So we went away and we prayed about it and we felt like God kind of laid on our hearts to plant a vineyard church somewhere in the early stages of 2018. And so we kind of aimed our life in that direction. And wouldn't you know that as we did that, as we kind of put that date in the diary, everything else in our life kind of followed the flow. So we found jobs, we figured out pretty quickly that it was going to be Gloucester. And here we are, February 2018, Gloucester Vineyard Church was born. Hooray! So first of all, do you want to see some photos of the first ever gathering? So we were at the climbing wall just on Parliament Street. There you go. Teeny tiny little room there. We just packed ourselves in there. There's a picture of Emily and I. We didn't have microphones back then, but I was pretending to hold a microphone. I don't know if we've got that other picture. Anyway, there's another one in there. We look younger. And then the following Sunday we did our very first Super Sunday. Look, there we are, out loving and serving the community with just a whole bunch of randomers who decided to come with us. Fair play to those guys who actually came out on that first ever Super Sunday. So that was about seven and a half years ago. And what a journey it's been. We've moved to various different venues over the years. We had the wonderful COVID years. Yes, shout out for Zoom church. Never again. We've always done Super Sundays. We've always tried to be servant-hearted. We've always played games and tried not to take ourselves too seriously. We've always preached the good news about the kingdom of God. We've always met in home groups and worshipped and eaten together. We've celebrated. We've mourned. And over that time God has changed and formed and moulded this church in ways that we, before we came here 10 years ago, could never have imagined. We could never have dreamed what God would ask us to do. You know, how he's consistently laid things in front of us of how he wants us to express his love and his kingdom here in Gloucestershire. You know, I think about starting a Christians Against Poverty debt centre within the first couple of years of the church's existence. It's just, we would never have thought that that was a good idea. I think about starting Grow Baby a couple of years ago. That was amazing. You know, a couple of years ago we ran like a county-wide clothing campaign to clothe 300 people are seeking asylum. Like, where did that come from? It was just laid in front of us as an opportunity. And it was really fun to say yes to. We love this church, Emma and I. We love leading this church. You guys are a consistent joy to us. And we're really excited to continue leading this church as we go on the journey. So, like Daniel says, sometimes the kind of God paths that have been laid in front of us have been one-off things like the clothing campaign that we did for the asylum seekers. Sometimes they've been quite unexpected and a bit of a left turn, like moving to St John's in the afternoon was a bit random for us. If you'd spoken to us four years ago, we would have been like, what? No. But here we are, and it's wonderful. We want to talk today, though, about a particular God path that we feel has been slowly but surely brewing over the years and is now bubbling to the surface. And we want to share that with you. About six years ago, we started to notice a few churchy things that kind of just rankled us a little bit. There seemed to be loads of church buildings just sitting empty around the city or indeed around the county. We were also hearing lots of stories of people from all over Gloucestershire traveling for like 45 minutes to an hour just to find a church to call home. And it was interesting because when lockdown hit five years ago, we noticed that there were quite a few people who fit this category joining us online from the surrounding villages because it was much easier online. And they were quickly becoming key people in our online home groups. And that's kind of when we started thinking, I wonder if GVC is just about like one community in Gloucester or whether there's something else kind of afoot in the county. It bothered us that Super Sunday was only serving one community when we represented several. It kind of bothered us that there were and are a number of neighborhoods that simply don't have a church presence in them at all, even in Gloucestershire, where there's a lot of churches. But there are still many places that do not. And about four years ago, as we were thinking these thoughts, a lovely family from South Africa joined us. Many of you may know Ryan and Lauren. And when they came, they came with a picture. Before they moved here, Lauren had been praying and she had received a picture from the Lord of World War II Dunkirk crossing, Operation Dynamo. Does anyone know about it? Oh, there you go. Basically, it was this mass evacuation in World War II of some Allied forces that were stranded on the beach in Dunkirk in France, stranded between the advancing German army and the sea. And in a wonderfully plucky British move, they basically did a call out to anyone and everyone who had a boat of any shape and size to get it on the water and join the rescue party. So boats of all shapes, sizes, purposes, fishing boats, pleasure boats, you name it, all crossed the channel to go and bring home as many troops as their vessels could. And that was the picture. And Lauren had a sense that it was a picture for the church. This idea of the church being on mission to reach as many people as possible in lots of small little boats of all shapes and sizes, each taking as many as they could hold. And this picture really resonated with us. It resonated deeply with how we were thinking of church at the time and feeling. And maybe God was inviting us to consider multiple smaller church communities rather than one big one. Around this time, we were also seeing quite a few of our fellow vineyard churches across the UK experimenting with what's called multi-site church. Simply, rather than kind of moving to a bigger building or building a bigger building or whatever as the church grows, instead becoming a multi-site church, which is a single church that gathers and serves in multiple locations across a county or a city. And so all of these things,

surprised when we got too big for a building, what if we just started to plan for it? What if we prayed for leaders to join our community? What if we invested in and trained them when they did? What if we kept our eyes and our ears and our hearts open to what was happening around the county, all in the faith that one day God might tell us that the moment for multiplication in Gloucester Vineyard Church was here? And so we did. We have been stepping into that over the past three or four years, holding and stewarding that vision, believing that God is speaking to us and preparing us for a moment of multiplication. And so last summer, Em and I were very lucky. We got to take a sabbatical from church leadership, which is basically just taking three months away to kind of recharge ahead of going again. And so this time last year, we had just stepped back in again and I was praying and seeking God for what was next for the church. You know, we'd just done seven years. Lord, what have you got next? And I wanted to know, was there anything that he had to say as we were stepping back into church life and back into leadership? And I felt like God called back to mind that moment that I just mentioned when we went to go and visit our friends, even before we started this church, where they said, when you go is more important than where you go. And I felt like God was saying, it's time to put a date in the diary again. It's time to do what I've laid on your heart to do. Now, I would love to say that I had a really good response to this, like Mary in our Bibles when the angel shows up and says she's going to have the baby Jesus. And she says, may it be unto me as you have said, oh Lord. I would love to say that I had that reaction, but actually my response was much more like Moses at the burning bush being like, seriously? Seriously? Our church? Have you seen our church? No offense. I thought they might laugh at that. There's like a slight delayed reaction. I love you guys. So I said, look, come on, Lord, have you seen our church? We're a dinky little church. Like being a multi-site church, creating new communities, that's what big churches do. Our church, it is not. It's a lovely church, but it's not a big church. You know, we don't have the people, we don't have the money, we don't have the energy. Basically, I said, Lord, we can't do what you're asking us to do because we don't have what we need. I said, Lord, give us all of the things that we need first and then we'll do it. How many of us in the room knows that that's not how things work in the economy of the kingdom of God? That's not how things work. How many of us know that faith is spelt R-I-S-K? So often, God is waiting to work, wanting to work, waiting to move, wanting to bless, but he wants us to make the first move before and step out in faith. In my mind, the way that church is multiplied is by just getting really big and see, and then just, because I've seen it happen before. I've been part of churches where that's been the case. You grow and you grow and you fill a space and then you do something to accommodate for the growth. You know, let's be really honest. We are not in that moment. But as we considered what God was saying, we did what one should always do when one senses that God has spoken just to make sure that you weren't eating too much mature cheddar last night. We took this idea, this thing that we thought God was saying about putting a date in the diary to some people that we love and people that we trust, and we asked them to help us to weigh it, to come back to us and say, you know, does this resonate with you? Does this seem like what God is doing? And one of those people went away and prayed and came back with a picture of cells dividing. I don't know if you've ever seen a time lapse of a cell dividing in two. What doesn't happen when a cell divides is it doesn't just get really, really big, get bigger and bigger and bigger and then kind of flop into two half-sized things. Instead, what it does is it creates everything that it needs within itself. And then there's kind of this moment of tension when it flops from one thing into two things. That is the technical scientific term in case you're wondering. Both of those things perfectly formed and functioning. The interpretation being, don't be surprised if God is calling you to do something in a way that is counter to what you'd expect and counter to what you've seen before. And so just like we did 10 years ago, Emma and I, along with our fantastic leaders team, started to pray, Lord, when would you like us to do this? When would you like us to step into becoming a multi-site church and launch a new expression? To step out in faith to what we feel like you're calling us towards. And so after a time of prayer and discernment, we all agreed that we felt that God said to put 18 months on the clock and to aim for Easter 2026. To step out in faith towards the thing that we felt God had said, trusting that he would provide everything that we need at the right moment along the way. To prepare like that cell for the moment of multiplication. Which leads us to today. Welcome. Easter 2026 is like next week. It's not. But it leads us to our exciting announcement, which if you've been paying attention for the last 10 minutes, you could tell me at this stage, right? But just in case you did fall asleep, I'm just going to say it really clearly so that you can share. Here we go. We believe that the time has come. The moment has arrived for us to step out in faith towards what God has been inviting us as a church into for years. And so at Easter 2026, we're going to launch a new expression of Gloucester Vineyard Church in this very city. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you should cheer. Yeah. Yeah. For the last 12 months as a team, we have been squirreling away in the background, kind of making plans, doing our research, having knotty conversations with our trustees, seeking wisdom from our advisors and our overseers within the vineyard, and seeking wisdom from people who've done this before. Basically getting ready to do what we believe God's calling us to. And today we're going public, so to speak, because we want to share this with all of you as a community. And we want to invite us all to be joining in, to pick up the vision and to step up into our part to play in what God is calling this community into. And so as Daniel said, next Easter, Sunday the 5th of April 2026, we will be launching a new expression of Gloucester Vineyard Church in the north of Gloucester in the mornings. There you go. Two more bits of detail for you. We're currently exploring the specifics of where, but we are heading north for a few reasons, the most compelling of which for us is that the north of Gloucester is expanding significantly and many of the new neighborhoods and areas simply have no church presence in them at all. And as we've said before, we don't think that's okay. To begin with, there will be a very small group of people, eight to 10 people, who will go and who will launch this new expression as a team and build community from scratch. Sunday gatherings will be a simplified, stripped back version of these gatherings. We'll play games, we'll worship, we'll open the Bible and we'll pray together. And we'll be expressing ourselves authentically based on the reality that there will be very few people initially. In the early days, there will be activities for any new kids that show up with their families, but we won't be running a full kids church in the way that we do here at first. The team will also be looking to do local super Sundays, gathering events, maybe an alpha course or two, getting invested in and getting involved in the local community, just like we did seven years ago with this one. Daniel and I will be leading this north team, so we will be at the morning gatherings each week getting things established. But it's worth making it very clear that we will also be present in the afternoons here in the centre as well. We plan to be here just as often as we are at the moment. We'll be preaching, leading worship and serving on teams just as we currently do. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about leadership for a second because this is actually one of the things that I'm really excited about as we go down this path. Another path that we really feel like God has been calling us towards over the last couple of years is to explore the idea of kind of leaning into team leadership in a big way, to try to be a church which is generous and collaborative in our leadership style. Rather than having one or two people who hold all the power and make all of the decisions, instead to be much more equipping and releasing and inviting to have teams of leaders who make decisions together. Now to an extent, this actually hasn't been what's been demonstrated to us or modelled to us in the past, but we feel compelled that this is what God has for our church in the future. And so a big part of what we're doing in becoming a multi-site church and what we're announcing today is a kind of significant step towards that collaborative and generous style of leadership that we feel God is inviting us into. And this really informs a lot of the how when we say how the dickens are we going to do this? The plan is to, that each site, the centre and in the north will be led by a team rather than a

Emily and I, as Emily said, we're going to be leading the team that launches the new expression in the north. In the short term, we will be the site pastors up there. But we intend to hand over to site pastors in the north, basically, as soon as we can. But it's worth clarifying that Emily and my main role will be as overall senior pastors of Gloucester Vineyard Church. Our role will be leading and overseeing both sites. And so, naturally, we will also be establishing site pastors and site teams here in the centre at St John's as well. These will be the people who will take on this central expression with all the exciting momentum that we have here in the city and who will be leading the team to continue bringing hope and joy to the city centre. And so... Would you like to know who it is? Without further ado, we would like to announce that the central site pastors for Gloucester Vineyard Church will be Chez and Don Vincent. Can we get a... Do you want to stand up for a second? Get on your feet. Stand up, you two. Stand up. Hooray. Yeah, exactly. Chez and Don have agreed to lead the team who will be overseeing everything that happens here and we are absolutely delighted. We just want to take a minute to honour you guys. I'll let you sit down so you're not totally embarrassed. We just want to take a minute to honour these guys as they step up. We asked Chez and Don to consider this role for many reasons. Firstly, because we see so much of our church values and our DNA expressed in the way that they live, the way that they run their home. They are joyful, generous people who love Jesus, have a heart for his kingdom and his mission and who live their faith out loud in public. Secondly, they're people who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty. They're hard workers, they're servant-hearted and they're servant leaders, all of which we really value as a church. And lastly, they love this church. They love all of us and they love afternoon church. When we said we were going to the morning, Chez was like, what? Why on earth would anyone go to church in the morning? That's ridiculous. Afternoon church is the best. Yes, exactly. And so we are really chuffed that Chez and Don have said yes to taking the lead here in the centre and we're really excited to see what they and the central team will be doing for Jesus and for his kingdom. We're going to be formally commissioning them in January 2026, but for now, let's just give them another cheer. One thing that it's worth saying is if you're in church leadership or you're moving into it, you need loads of prayer and loads of encouragement. So every time you pray, pray for Chez and Don. Every time you get a picture or a slight word of encouragement, text them, message them, tell them on a Sunday because it's a spiritual battle. I'm not going to lie. And so this is a moment where actually they need as much prayer and love and support as they can. So, got you. So those are some of the details about what's happening where and when. And naturally, we may have a whole host of questions. We're going to answer some today and there's various opportunities to be asking more in the coming weeks. But for now, one of my questions to you, Daniel, can you see how natural this is going to be, is how is this going to change things around here in the centre? How will the launching of the new expression in the north change things? How's it going to affect the centre? Thank you for asking. For starters, so we are working very, very hard to try and launch this new site in such a way that actually week on week, this room doesn't feel very different at all. It might be that there's a handful fewer people initially, but our hope here is that actually things in the centre won't change very much. Chez and Don will be a little bit more visible than Emily and I and will be making a whole load of local decisions, which we're really excited about. But we will still be very involved in the day to day running of the church. Wonderful. So how do I know if I'm going to stay in the centre in the afternoons or if I'm going to go and be part of the team launching in the north? What a great and insightful question. Thanks. So for now, let me just simply say this. Unless we feel a real and definite invitation from God to come and get stuck in in the north, then please stay here in the centre. One of the funny things about the plan that we've created is it's actually quite contingent on lots of people staying here and carrying on as usual. Launching the new expression is going to take quite a lot of hard work and intentionality. Those of us who go will likely, for the first six months or so, we're going to be on team every single Sunday, and there's probably going to be at least one week, one night of the week every single week building community up there. There will be many weeks where there just won't be very many people in the room, and that can be a little bit awkward, and we're just going to roll with that. Now, whilst some of us, we might be like, yes, sign me up, I'm very excited about that, I'm aware that most of us just simply aren't up for that, and that's okay. The reality is, as we all know, there is loads of really exciting kingdom stuff that's happening right here, right now in the city centre. We are not taking our eyes off that, not one bit. What we really need is for this congregation to stay and to stay well, to reach out like never before. Remaining in the centre is not a secondary, less exciting option. Ches and Don and the team are going to be moving forward, and they're going to need all of us here in the centre to play our part in any way that they can. Amen. But Emily, let me ask you a not scripted question in the slightest. Please. Everybody in this room is fantastic. Will I ever see those who go to the north ever again? No. Obviously not. No. But that is a genuinely insightful and thoughtful question that many of us may be feeling, and the reality is that there is a bit of a cost to this, that we will have to pay as a community as we step into multiplication. We're going to have to think outside of Sunday gatherings alone for our friendships and our community to form and to continue. We've seen this happen over and over again with our home groups over the years. Who here has been part of a home group that has multiplied, changed shape, changed days, or changed venues? Yes, many, many, many of us. And it will be the same again. With any change, particularly in a multiply-y kind of way, it causes us to be thoughtful with our time, our energy, and our resource again. Often, we might have to think about how we relate to each other. We might have to find creative ways to ensure that we don't lose relationships with the people that we love. But church is more than Sunday gatherings, right? So, if you haven't already, swap numbers, go out for coffee, eat together, pray together outside of Sundays, encourage each other in the kingdom stuff that is happening, because it's entirely up to us if we see people outside of Sundays again. Are we becoming two churches? We are not. It is really important to emphasize at this moment as well that we are not becoming two separate churches. We are still one church with one vision, with one set of values, one set of trustees, one bank account, one set of senior pastors, and so there will be plenty of stuff that will happen as one church together. Home groups will be shared across the sites. Go to whichever one suits you on the best day or in the best location for you. Youth home group is included in that, so that will be across both sites. Youth from both sites will go to home group together. Home group leaders' training will continue to be across the sites. Our ministries like Chai and Chat, Vibes, Grow Baby will be supported and championed across both sites. But on top of that, there will also be kind of intermittent get-togethers that we will inevitably do, where both sites will get together and have a moment of connection. Think, for example, church weekend away. Thanks. Prompting a whoop every time, thank you. Our approach to answering the question about, like, is that a north thing, a central thing, or like a combined thing, is to ask actually instead, what will be most effective for the kingdom and most simple for the community? So if there's something that is more effective, simpler, and sustainable to stay within each expression, we'll do that. If there's something that would be more effective, simple, and sustainable to be done combined, we will do that. There's many, many more questions that people may have about this, some of which we know the answers to, some of which we don't, and they will come in due course. But we have created a couple of ways to accommodate some of your questions. Firstly, we have

created a nifty little booklet. Ooh, fancy. We're like a proper church and everything. In here, we've basically talked, there's a lot of information about what we've talked about today, plus some more details and kind of other detailed questions in there as well. So we will put these at the back at the end. So please feel free to take one per household, preferably. Have a little read, have a reflect, have a peruse and get back to us. So hopefully this will answer some of your questions. Secondly, we have created a couple of opportunities in the coming weeks where we will have a Q&A session. So as we said earlier, next week at Supercharged Sunday, Daniel and I will be leading a workshop Q&A session in here. So if you have any, bring your questions, ask your things and we'll have a good discussion. Equally, there'll be a Monday evening in October where we will have a Zoom meeting for anyone with more questions as well. So watch out in the weekly email, there will be time to ask all of those. Please bring along your thoughts, ask your questions, share your feelings. We want to hear them. Yes, we do. Can I bring our time together to close with some real blunt honesty? Is this okay? Still an okay place to be really blunt and honest? Yeah? Yes. You're like, no, I don't like the sound of that. Please sugarcoat everything. No, I won't. Let's address the elephant in the room, shall we? Making the change to being a multi-site church is a risk. When we do this, it is going to be costly and we are going to feel it. It's going to cost us time and energy and money. It's going to be a risk. So why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? Hopefully you've got half an answer. Hopefully I've got some answers here on this piece of paper. I'd like to give you three reasons why we're doing this. The first and most important one is that we think that God has asked us to do this. This is not a knee-jerk, flippant, glib, I think I heard God speak last week, so we're just going to risk it all on a roll of the dice. We have been sensing that God has been saying this for most of the time that we have existed as a church. And since we started this process 12 months ago, we have been repeatedly seeking wise counsel. We've gone back to God. We've done everything we can to be as sure as we can that we are moving slowly and carefully with as much confidence as we can to what God has for us next. We believe that God has told us to do this, and that is the biggest reason. The second reason is that this is part of our vineyard DNA. We are part of a larger movement of churches across the UK and around the world called the Vineyard Movement. There are thousands of vineyard churches currently in existence because this is what we do. Church multiplication is part of our heritage. It's part of what it means to be a vineyard church. We are here, we exist as a church because Aylesbury Vineyard launched Gloucester Vineyard. Aylesbury Vineyard was launched by Riverside Vineyard. Riverside Vineyard was launched by Southwest London Vineyard. You get the point. As vineyard churches, this is what we do. We spread out. We create communities. This is part of our heritage. This is part of our DNA. The third and final reason, and the reason why the vineyard is so obsessed with launching new worshiping communities, is because establishing new worshiping communities has been shown to be the best, most effective evangelism strategy that there is. As a church, we want to see the kingdom of God advancing. We want to see new people coming into the kingdom, encountering Jesus for the first time, being healed and restored, and giving their allegiance to him. We want to see people joining in the revolutionary family of God, learning to know him as their father, and learning to walk in Jesus' footsteps. And we know that establishing new worshiping communities where there currently are none is the most effective way of seeing that happen. It's been the strategy for the last 2,000 years, so really, this is nothing new. And so, whilst we agree, this plan is a risk, that it's going to be costly and difficult for us as a church, we are confident that this is what God is inviting us into in the coming years. We are convicted that this is what churches, not just ours, should be doing, because it's what the church has done for generations. And we are convinced that if we're serious about seeing the kingdom of God advancing in the county, this is how we go about seeing it. And so, as we wrap up, I just want to recall the stuff of September that we've been looking at as a community. As we've explored church, the church, this church, being a devoted, active, Jesus-shaped community, gathered together, grounding ourselves in good theology, growing in our discipleship to Jesus, and going into the world to proclaim the good news of the kingdom in any way that we can. This is a moment for us as Gloucester Vineyard Church to turn up the heat of what it means to be this community in this place at this time. To ensure that the church doesn't fade into the background, but actually steps up into the fore. This is not something that a handful of the leaders team are going to be doing. It involves all of us to step up, step in, and to play our part, because that is what church is. It is the body of Christ together. It's not a hobby or a spectator sport. It's an alive, transformative community, seeking the king and the kingdom in all things. And so, the kids will come back in at some point in the next few minutes. No, they won't. I told her to keep them. Okay. We've got loads of time. Fine. Heather has your children. It's all fine. In which case, we're going to take a minute to respond. Kiri and Katie and Charlotte, would you mind coming up? We're actually going to sing a song together. It's one that we've been singing a bit over the summer. And we feel like it's one that we want to sing together as a community, particularly in this moment, where we have prayed our prayers and we've made our plans. But we want to welcome Holy Spirit to come, because if God's not in it, we're not interested. We feel like this is what God is calling us to. But we want to take a moment to surrender all that we have spoken about today, all of our thoughts and feelings that we might have off the back of today, and give them back to Jesus for him to do what he wants with his church. Does that sound good? So if you are able to and willing, then please do stand. We're going to sing together, and then we'll go into communion. I'll leave that.